The present invention relates to a device for punching apertures in a sheet of material. More particularly, the present invention is a hand operated punching device for making apertures in a sheet of material suitable for holding a smaller sheet of material, such as a business card.
Business cards are used by many people to identify themselves and their company/organization that they are associated with. The business cards are small in form and can be easily carried and organized. It is quite common for a person to attach a business card to correspondence, reports, brochures or other documents. Typically, the business card is either stapled or clipped to the item. Stapled business cards are not easy to remove and the stapling process damages the business cards. "Paper-clipping" the business card to the document is also not a satisfactory solution since paper-clipping also damages the business card and the business card can be easily separated from the document.
In addition to stapling or paper-clipping business cards to documents, some devices have been advanced for forming spaced-apart parallel slits in the document. The slits are suitably sized to receive opposite corners of a business card. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,893,435 and 4,879,932 disclose two such devices. In both of these devices, a pair of slitting blades extend downwardly from an upper platen and are sized, positioned and arranged to form the spaced-apart parallel slits. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,535, the upper platen moves generally normal to the sheet of paper wherein the operator exerts downward pressure upon an upper surface of the platen. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,879,932, the upper platen pivots on a pin forming a hinge with a lower base. The slitting blades pivot with respect to the pin when downward force is applied to the platen.
One disadvantage of the above-described devices is that neither device makes apertures in the document, but rather, only small slits. Insertion of the business cards into the slits is not particularly easy. The cutting devices are also only blades, which can dull easily with use. Therefore, there exists a need to provide a hand operated punching device that forms apertures in a sheet of paper suitable for holding a business card, the device being constructed to withstand repeated and continuous use.